Gareth Porter: U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed well over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-NATO command reveals.

Gareth Porter: A July United Nations report asserting that only 30 civilians died in targeted raids in Afghanistan during the first six months of 2011 reflected only a very small fraction of night raids in which civilians were killed.

Andy Love: So, despite their best efforts to rewrite history, will Bush, Cheney and Rice be viewed as villains or inept clowns? The answer can be found in another philosophical proposition: The Unity of Opposites. They can be villains and clowns.

Lydia Howell: The US government — bought and paid for by weapons-makers and mercenaries (‘contractors’) —does not think that We The People have the right to even question, much less challenge and resist permanent war, which is bankrupting our country and civilian deaths ignites violent reaction.

It’s time we demand investing our taxpayer dollars in our own communities at home and in American jobs, America’s crumbling infrastructure, and new technology. Its time to ask our representatives and federal government critical questions about who benefits from the development in Afghanistan.

Ominously, the Pentagon has spent over a trillion dollars in recent years on the refinement of deadlier killing instruments and the militarization of space from which it can control the planet with even greater authority than from its 1,000 foreign bases.

If President Obama wants to honor Dr. King’s memory for all that he did for him, he might begin by bringing U.S. troops home from the Middle East now. As for visions, how about an America that does not live by the sword?